Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The public's privado
- 2 The ship money case and The Case of Shipmony
- 3 Religio laici
- 4 Observations and the political theory of the emergency
- 5 The Observator observed
- 6 “Vaine Confidence in the Law”: the Observator responds
- 7 Diverse urgent emergent considerations
- 8 Disputable and visible politics
- Conclusion: contrary points of war
- Appendix: The writings of Henry Parker
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
4 - Observations and the political theory of the emergency
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The public's privado
- 2 The ship money case and The Case of Shipmony
- 3 Religio laici
- 4 Observations and the political theory of the emergency
- 5 The Observator observed
- 6 “Vaine Confidence in the Law”: the Observator responds
- 7 Diverse urgent emergent considerations
- 8 Disputable and visible politics
- Conclusion: contrary points of war
- Appendix: The writings of Henry Parker
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
Summary
To this point, we have seen Parker twice entering the nurseries of royalist thought. Both times he stepped gingerly, lest he crush the flowers as he trampled the weeds. In The Case of Shipmony, Parker deployed the royalist judges' own logic to damn the promoters of ship money, and to proffer the parliament as the repository of conciliar wisdom as well as the common good, against the individual interest of evil counsellors. In his religious pamphlets Parker used the Tudor royal supremacy to disarm the clerics' formidable arsenal, advancing the king's cause as the layman's. Parker's use of imperialist political idolatry drove him to clarify parliament's role with respect to the king. Yet it is surprising to see the extent to which Parker committed himself to such a dangerously double-edged weapon as Tudor imperialism.
Had Parker gone no further with these royalist idioms, he might be seen as a mainstream thinker, clever in his use of traditional and, at least by some reckonings, conservative arguments to make damning but ideologically modest points against the seeming proprietors of those arguments. This evaluation corresponds to Parker's ostentatious parade of his gentility (even when it was that oxymoron, anonymous gentility), which served to reinforce the appearance of moderation. Of course, this was a pose – not a falsehood but a staged representation, psychologically as well as rhetorically useful.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Henry Parker and the English Civil WarThe Political Thought of the Public's 'Privado', pp. 70 - 89Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995